1. Field of the Invention
The present invention broadly relates to computer system migration tools, and the improvements thereof.
2. Background
Computer migration may be broadly defined as the process of transferring some or all of a “source” computer's information, non-device assets or intellectual property, to a “target” computer. The computer migration process is often carried out via a special computer migration tool kit in the form of software loaded on the source computer, the target computer, or both. The two computers involved in the migration process can be linked in a variety of ways, including, inter alia, direct cables/wires, direct telephone links, Local Area Networks (LANs), and Wide Area Networks (WANs). Alternatively, another approach is to use an intermediate storage device or system (e.g., rewritable or write-once CDs, ZIP® storage devices, network storage, etc.) to which to transfer aspects of the source computer. The aspects to be migrated are then transferred from the intermediate device to the target computer.
With rapid advancements in the computing power and memory capacity of widely available desktop computers, as well as others, the practical life cycle of computer systems continues to decrease. While users continue to switch to newer computer systems, there is very often a need and desire to transfer important aspects of the old computer system to the new computer system. There are several prior art approaches to computer migration, each having drawbacks. A “brute-force” approach entails painstakingly transferring software, data and other aspects of a source computer to a target computer in a piece-meal fashion. This method is tedious, extremely slow, and often requires a level of sophistication not possessed by ordinary computer users who wish to transfer important aspects from one computer to another computer.
An improved approach is to semi-automatically migrate aspects of a source computer to a target computer using a migration tool kit which has been loaded in the source computer, the target computer, or both. Using this approach, all non-physical aspects of source computer are transferred en masse. While this eliminates some of the drawbacks (i.e., tediousness, time consuming, difficult for ordinary users) of brute-force migration methods, there are yet problems with this approach. Often the user would like to transfer most of the aspects of the source computer, but not all of them—especially where newer versions of software and operating system are available. This approach can also transfer aspects from the source computer that may be incompatible with the target computer, leading to conflicts, dangerous system instability, and sometimes inoperability of the target computer.
Later generation software such as the Alohabob's™ PC Relocator software marketed by Eisenworld, Inc., the assignee of this Letters Patent, solves the aforementioned problems by transferring all of the important aspects of the source computer—including preferences and settings—to the target computer, while giving the user the option to leave behind potentially troublesome (to the target computer) aspects of the source computer.
Even with these improvements, the en masse transfer from the source computer to the target computer is not always desirable. Users sometimes wish to be given the choice of only transferring specific programs and related data. The typical prior art approach to transferring specific programs is a script-based approach, in which the migration tool responds directly to scripts stored in the migration software for the exact course of action to take regarding known software programs. This approach only works where the migration tool kit is set up to migrate the specific program in question. Thus, it may be possible to successfully migrate very popular software programs and data, but not less popular or more proprietary software programs and data. These tools have no mechanism to migrate aspects for which there are not already stored scripts.
A last ditch effort of the prior art approaches allows sophisticated users who are so inclined to develop their own scripts for programs that are not recognized by the original migration software. However, even if one is capable and motivated to generate scripts for programs not covered by the original migration software, there is no flexibility to handle new software on the fly.
What is therefore sorely needed is a migration tool which allows a user to conveniently transfer specific aspects of a source computer to a target computer that the user selects, and a migration tool that can intelligently and automatically transfer aspects of the source computer to the target computer, even when the migration tool has no previous knowledge of, or encounters with a particular program to be transferred.